(2020-11-26) Sloan Advice For Newsletterers

Robin Sloan: Advice for newsletter-ers. Here’s my advice: A personal email newsletter ought to be divided into seasons, just like a TV show.

By “personal” I don’t mean “diaristic” but rather “produced almost entirely by one writer, in order to pursue some interest and/or establish a small business.”

When do you break between seasons? Anytime!

my year-long newsletter from 2019, which was titled Year of the Meteor. It was launched with an expiration date, and I swear to you, that ticking clock was like a power source: a lump of uranium decaying, spraying off energy

The crispness of my Year of the Meteor was the exception. In practice, basically every email newsletter runs like my dev diary:
Exciting launch
Burst of confident, clockwork content
Slackening of pace
Newsletter with some variation of “it’s been a while!”
Briefly renewed sense of purpose, energy
Deeper slackening